Fades Away
by dark wings alias raat ke rani
Summary: basically what happened to Haku since the day he noticed Chihiro. Haku's POV


Spirited Away belongs not to me.... It belongs to Studio Ghibli.

This is my first attempt on the movie. But after watching it for who-knows-how-many-times and while I was looking for some inspiration for some children story that I need to write I somehow came up with the idea - instead of the idea for the original - I came up with a fanfiction. It's separated in several short chapters, but there can be several chaps in each ff.net chapters. You'll see when you read it.

Thanks to Annonymouse for beta reading the ficcie. 

**Fades Away**

**Once upon on a Forgotten Time**  
  
"Chihiro, don't go too close to the edge, you'll fall." I heard a woman calling to her daughter. 

It was spring and the Sakura trees along my river banks were already blooming in its peach-colored grace. I loved to watch young families with their children spend their weekends by my river, Kohaku Gawa. The mothers set up a table cloth and have a picnic by the river banks while their children ran along the river and played. The view would last all along spring time while the Sakura blooms to its fullness and the breeze came with its soft touch across the water and brought news of goodwill.

"Chihiro, come, we've set up the lunch."

I saw a little girl stood up hastily. She lost her balance but she managed to firm her stand, only her right shoe fell into the river. 

"Mother, Chihiro's shoe fell into the river," she said as she took off her other shoe and stepped into the water, "Chihiro needs to take it back."

"No, Chihiro! Come back. There's no need to get the shoe!" 

But it was too late. She had chased her shoe too far. The river flow in spring seemed to be gentle and quiet, but it was still dangerous for humans, especially to a human infant. She slipped and fell into the river. 

I giggled. Human were so careless. I first watched the little girl struggle to stand up against the river flow. I found it amusing. Human were so heedless with their surroundings especially human infants. No, particularly this human infant. She tried to stand but she fell back into the flowing stream. She tried to rise again but didn't manage to find a place to keep her stand and fell again.

My amusement went away when she started to panic. And instead of managing herself to get out of the river, the flow carried her to deeper place. Her face went white and I saw that her mother's did to. 

"Help!" she reached out her hand, hoping that somebody would grab it and she would be saved. But it was no use. Her place was too far from the banks and it was not safe either for adults to plunge into the river.

"Chihiro!" the woman, Chihiro's mother walked closer into my river. "Chihiro! Please, somebody, help her!"

"Woman, don't be crazy," a man held her back from risking her life to help her poor child, "It's too dangerous."

"Chihiro! Please somebody, save my child! Kami-sama, please spare my daughter's life from your anger!" 

Moved by pity, I made my way to the little girl. She was starting to drown. I swam below her because the river in that area was very deep and the river flow was wild. 

"Don't be afraid," I told her, "Hold on me and I will carry you to shallow ground."

She froze as she heard my voice. 

"Come, hold on to my body and I will carry you to shallow ground."

The little girl reached down and held on tight to my horns.

"There, don't be afraid."

//Who are you?//

"I am the river deity of this area. I am the river dragon of Kohaku Gawa." I answered her. "And you are Chihiro, aren't you?"

"Ng." She gave a nod.

By that time we had made our way to shallow ground. I turned myself back into my invisible shape as the part of the water current. We, the deities and gods, had decided to stop showing ourselves to humans from far back then. They had left their belief in us and even sometimes denied our presence. We became frightening creatures and they looked upon us nowadays with fear instead of respect.

"Thank you, Kohaku-sama," she said before she ran back to her mother.

//You are welcome//

  
  
**Foresights of Doom**  
  
"Have you heard? The city council is going to reclaim this river"

I somehow over heard several high school students talking as they made their way back home after school. Reclaim this river? What are they talking about? What is this reclaim thing they were talking about? I couldn't understand what they're talking about.

"But I don't think it's gonna happen. The environmentalist will never let them do it." The boy continued, "I'm definitely against it. It's fun to have a river bank to play upon sometimes."

A boy with glasses scolded him, "This is the era of technology, and I don't see why we need this river. Beside they can change the flow into a bigger river somewhere. We need not worry about floods anymore."

"Anou," the only girl in the group interrupted, "I don't understand what you're talking about. What is this reclamation thing?"

The first boy was the one who answered the question, "Reclamation is when you drain a river, cover the river bed with soil and build buildings on top of it. Therefore you'll get more land for buildings. Japan doesn't have that much land so this is the only way we can get some more land."

Drain the river? Cover the river bed? Wait! They cannot do that!

"They're going to build shopping malls and commercial buildings in here."

"Shopping malls?" the girl screamed, "Whoa! That means I don't have to travel far to go shopping. That's gonna be fun!"

"But draining a river, isn't it against the law of nature?" the first boy ask. 

Yes. Yes.

"No need to worry anyway," the second one voiced again, "The Singaporeans and the Dutch has done this many times. It will be alright. We'll gonna have more space to play. Besides there's no need to worry about your river. You said yourself earlier that the plan is not yet final."

The teenagers turned to a bend and were gone from my sight. This news made me shiver. Is it true that human are capable of doing such thing? This reclamation thing seemed like a nightmare to me, a nightmare that might come to life. I glanced at the blue sky and wondered if mankind had really gone so wrong as to do more than the mother earth would permit. But what if the earth didn't mind about the man-made changes on her body? Would I be the only one left astray?

I seeked consolation from the winds and the water, but their answer somehow failed me. They said that such thing had been done since long before, both to rivers and seas. Did humans really loose their minds? I saw nothing but the imbalance they would cause from taking more than what they're allowed to get. The earth said in her deep voice that the payment would come sooner or later, but nothing more is to be said and I was once again alone with my thought.

  
  
"You are still young, Kohaku-sama," said one of the sakura trees to me. The maiden revealed herself to my eyes in her blossoming beauty. "Kami-sama would send you elsewhere and be again a river deity. You have much better future than us, for men will surely take us out from the beloved earth."

The sakura tree was a lot younger than me, but to the life span of a tree she was old enough, while I could be considered very young for a dragon. "What is life for a river dragon without his own river to guard?" I asked her but she fell into silence for a little girl came into our direction.  
I watched her closely and saw that it was the little girl I helped the other day.

"Kohaku-sama," she said in a loud voice, "Chihiro comes here to say thank you for saving Chihiro's life the other day." She paused for a moment but there was no answer for her. I didn't see why I should materialize before her and answer. That we only did in the olden times when humans still believed in us.

"Anou," she said again, "Chihiro is going to move from town tomorrow, and mother once said to me that Chihiro has to give something in return to someone who has helped," she paused to take a deep breath and then continued again, "Therefore Chihiro wants to give you offerings." She put something by the shore, close enough to my feet.

She continued again, "Mother said that gods and deities loved rich feast and piles of fruits or gold coins but Chihiro couldn't buy them so, Chihiro can only give you this." And then she bowed low and left again running on her little legs back to her house.

"That girl still cares about our being," said the Sakura tree. She stepped out from her stem.

I took the thing she left and realized that it was a candy wrapped in shinny paper of red and blue. I wasn't very keen of modern human food that they brought from over the seas. And this one as well. I liked sweets and dried fruits but I didn't like candies. Nevertheless her sincere gratitude stirred me. At least one person still care about our being. But what would a child human do to prevent our nightmare? Beside, I believed she said she was going to move out.

I tried to comfort myself by repeating again and again that the plan was not yet final, as what the teenager had pointed. So I stood silently by my river and watched the water singing as they flowed to the great sea while I pray for our safety from human hands.

  
_Water flows ever to lower lands  
As my heart longs always for the sea  
No matter what the world to me sends   
There's always one to pay the fee_

_  
The world goes forever on  
Be in winter or summer  
The world goes forever on  
Even when one gone and whither_

  
~~to be continued~~

There is something that I am not yet sure of and maybe some of you can explain this to me so I won't make any mistakes anymore. 

(1) Is it correct to call a river dragon in Japanese culture as "river deity"? I somehow think it can also be considered as god... but since there's a line in which Chihiro said something like, "It sounds like a god's name" - which can be interpreted that Haku was not a god, so I decided to group Haku as a deity, although I read somewhere that a dragon can be considered as god anyway. If anyone can provide me with better knowledge, I would be very, very grateful.

(2) Does Japanese call the earth as "she"? The references I read never tell anything about the gender of "earth".... the only ones I know are the sun goddess, rice and goddess, and then the thunder and storm god. I'm not too sure about the others and there's one reference in which I read that earth is merely a substance that the gods and goddesses rule. And as far as I know there's no gender for third person in Japanese... so this little trivia confuses me, whether I can call the earth as she or he or it..... ^__^()

OK, I guess that's all.... Thank you for reading the ficcie..... And I'd be honored if any of you care to review..... C ya!!


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